


through the happy and the sad

by theatrythms



Series: we have fixed each other up [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Family, Future Fic, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mike and Richie are twins au, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Relationship, Stranger things x It, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 11:22:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20993993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theatrythms/pseuds/theatrythms
Summary: (Mike doesn’t think there will ever come a time where he is not always worrying about his brother.)





	through the happy and the sad

**Author's Note:**

> okay!!!! i said i was done with this au but im not !!!! i saw the new movie !!! holy fuck !!!!  
its not totally essential to read the other fics in this series but a quick tldr is that mike and richie were seperated from a young age and find each other when they were around 10 (as told in 'so we are safe and sorry') which chronicles the first 2 st seasons and itchap 1. then in 'back to where the magic grew' richie is having family issues and he ends up moving to hawkins with mike  
just to say, since richie is raised by the wheelers , in this hes out to himself/family/close close friends . hes still very very very repressed and not out professionally , but hes out to the people that matter :))  
i also gave nancy/mike/holly children but no names or genders . nancy has two , mike has four and holly has two/maybe three . i also dont have older!stranger things character fancasts just that i wrote mike in mind with how bill hader looked in trainwreck  
that being said, please enjoy !!

After fifteen years of Rich’s comedy career, Mike thinks he would’ve gotten used to new students gaping and blinking at him from five rows of seats, each one waiting until someone finally plucks up the courage to ask why their English teacher just so happens to look exactly like acclaimed comedian, occasional voice actor, ‘controversial’ twitter user, Richie Tozier.

“We’re identical twins.” Mike has taken to saying, closing his laptop with a sigh.

Sacramento felt like half the world away from Hawkins, but it’s where he’s put his life and his marriage and his children are growing up there. If he taught in Hawkins, or even, in Indiana, the constant barrage of questions and curious glances would be more limited, because if Hawkins does one thing correctly, it’s praising itself for being the hometown of Richie Tozier.

(Hawkins is also the hometown of Michael Wheeler, an acclaimed indie sci-fi writer who has been called ‘a Bill Denbrough type’, with more sci-fi and much better endings. Hawkins just doesn’t mention it as much. On the other hand, Mr Wheeler is an english teacher in a private school in Sacramento, a job he keeps in the fear that writing won’t be enough to support him and El and the kids. He could’ve quit months ago, years ago, even, but he’s just turned forty and the economic stability is always nice.

When he’s not just Michael Wheeler or Mr Wheeler, he’s Jane Wheeler’s husband and dad to four children. He is Richie Tozier’s twin brother, but he’s also Richard Tozier Wheeler’s twin brother, who has spent over thirty years and counting with his brother, and nothing could ever change that.)

Summer is his time for writing, three months of the year he gets off to do nothing but watch the kids, see his wife off to work, and churn out a few hundred pages to be shipped off to a publisher. In the chance that there is ever a movie adaptation of his series, he’s already vehemently sworn that his brother can have no role, part, or vocal cameo at any point, and Rich doesn’t even mind.

(Of course Rich doesn’t really mind anything these days. Someone else writes his shows and someone else books his gigs and someone else runs his social media. Mike misses the days before he became a teacher, before he started getting paid for writing, when it was just him and Rich, riding across the country, looking for anywhere that had an open mic. Rich didn’t even need to write his own material back then, it was like the words came out of him and the audience fell into his lap.)

Mike doesn’t ever think there will come a time where he is not always worrying about his brother.

This all comes to an apex at the end of summer, just as Mike has to drag himself out of his novel and into his lesson plans, when he gets a call from his brother. Rich lives in LA, a long drive, but they’ve haven’t lived in separate states since they were teenagers. When Rich is on tour, Mike makes sure there’s no rotting food in his fridge and that his plants aren’t dead. He picks up on the second ring, the hesitation coming in the form of struggling to remember where in America he was.

“Do you remember Mike Hanlon from Maine?”

The question is enough to stop Mike’s heart, a sudden sense of discomfort taking over his whole body. Maine is where Michael Tozier was born, where he eventually left, where something sinister and snarling and awful grew there, lingering there. He hasn’t been back since he was sixteen.

(The Upside Down was a realm that Mike and his family have managed to avoid for nearly twenty five years. Hawkins wasn’t immune, neither was Derry, but Sacramento seemed to be enough distance.)

“Yeah.” Mike says after a pause, pulling himself back to reality. He can hear Rich’s heavy breathing against the receiver, almost like their adolescent exchanges from years and years and years ago. “Yeah, I remember him Rich.”

“He’s asking me to come back to Maine. Apparently it’s a whole, reunion, or whatever. It’s been like-”

“Twenty seven years.” Mike says, already getting up the Delta Airlines website. “You need someone to come with you? I could-”

“It’s fine, Mikey.” Rich snaps, then sighs, and Mike can picture his brother rub his hand down his face so hard he knocks his glasses off of his nose. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to, it’s just…”

“I know.” Mike says, and he means it. Like always, he’s one of the only people in the world that understands Richie, even at the best of times, and the worst ones that follow.

(Going back to Derry is like returning to a cage you didn’t realise you were caught in. For Mike, Derry is where he lost his family, and Hawkins is where he found it. It’s the same for Richie too, just ten years too late.)

There’s the slightest break in the conversation, as Rich’s breathing manages to “I haven’t seen some of those guys in years. It’s like I moved away and never fucking talked to them again.”

“I hate to be a pain, Rich, but that’s exactly what you did.” Mike says dryly, but the connection to Derry died through no fault of his own. The first few months of Rich living in Hawkins was completely taken up by social workers coming and going, social services dropping in randomly, adjusting to school, society, becoming part of a stereotypical family unit. The first time he called Karen Wheeler mom was almost three years after he got adopted, when he looped his long arms around her in his cap and gown and thanked her for getting him that far. “I don’t even remember any of them.”

(In fact, there was always something disturbing about how, for as long as Mike can remember, he’s always had Rich in his life, like Derry didn’t exist, just a forgein, fabricated memory, only there for the purpose of acknowledging you were once from somewhere else, with different parents, different friends. Derry was a point of origin, not a point of return.)

Rich scoffs, a sound that signifies his brother is back to his old self, out of his spiraling panic. “Jeez, way to make me feel like a fucking prick about it.”

“Are you gonna go, then?”

Rich sighs through the phone, a long, heavy one, that almost sounds like his chest is about to cave in. Losing autonomy over his material and career and life has been a bad point for various reasons, but Mike hasn’t heard him sound him sound this stressed in the longest time.

“I guess I’m going back to fucking Derry then.” There’s the briefest pause. “Oh, say hi to the kids and Jane for me, would you?”

-

Before now, Richie had always assumed losing all of his memories of Derry had something to do with whatever loving, stable environment the Wheeler’s provided. That the safety of Hawkins was enough to counteract everything that happened in the first few years of his life. The universe’s most humble apology, for fucking up his life so badly.

But it’s surreal to be there, driving through the streets he used to live in. The memories are hazy, scattered, as if he lived there in isolation, in a world of thick glasses and patterned shirts. Derry was where he lived without his brother, and after he was found again, there was no need to remember those years by himself.

It must be where the pain comes from, the curling fear in the center of his chest, all of the stress and anxiety piling on him. No one wants to go where they were unwanted.

(But the truth is, he was always wanted.)

The Chinese restaurant Mike instructs him to meet is a new addition to Derry, along with half of the infrastructure and houses he’d passed on his way in. The fact that Derry had  _ grown  _ rather than shrunk in his absence is still mind boggling and uncomfortable, compared to the slow, small town world Hawkins never managed to break out of.

He parks his car. He meets Beverly Marsh and Ben Hanscom and it feels like his hearts gonna burst. He walks through the doors and finds the rest of them, his Losers, his people, the kindred spirits that made growing up somewhat bearable, in Mike Hanlon’s smile, Bill Denbrough’s kind eyes, Stan Uris’ warm voice. And Eddie, Eddie who walks in last, not much taller and looking the exact same, Eddie Kaspbrak, the second person, next to Mikey, that Richie ever truly loved.

(“Hey, guess what.” Mikey says, hanging up the phone in their shitty motel room. They spent their twenty first birthday with only each other, caught somewhere in Kenosha to meet some comedy agent. “Mom got into a fight with Rebecca Olson because she said Ellen DeGeneres should’ve stayed in the closet. She called her an ignorant fuck and told her, and this is coming from Holly, ‘to stop making those fucking scones for every bake sale, no one likes your fucking scones.’” Mike even used air quotes, unable to keep his face straight.

“Really? Mom? Karen Wheeler, head of the PTA, told Becky Olson to shove her scones where the sun doesn’t shine?”

There wasn't any doubt in Richie’s mind that mom was capable of doing that, but it still sent the sweetest spread of warmth through him, knowing that even in a world full of Becky Olson’s, his mom would never stop defending him. Coming out to Karen Wheeler was easy, because Karen Wheeler loved her children more than anything else, and coming out to Ted Wheeler was easier than he thought, because his father loved his children too.

It’s what Hawkins meant, being able to be himself, and then the rest of the world crept in, and he realised he couldn’t.)

Richie expects there to be some initial awkwardness, some tentative tension, maybe even anger, that they all moved on and forget each other.

Instead that never comes. And Trashmouth is back.

“So you’re like, loaded, now, Ben?”

“Bev, I swear to fuck I have worn a jacket you made!”

“Mike how the fuck have you never been on a plane? Like genuinely, how?”

“Since Stan didn’t bother to show up and defend himself, I’m gonna bet he has a really fucking boring job. You know he has! You just know it!”

“So Eddie, you mean to say you live in New York but you’ve never seen a show on Broadway? Fuck, I’ve done a few shows in New York and I still had the time to go see Wicked.”

“Considering you could barely fucking string a sentence together, I’m amazed at the quality of your work Bill.”

“But Richie, wait, do you not write books too?” Bill asks, leaning across the table. Bill without a stutter was a strange surprise, like the final proof they’d all grown up and moved onto being completely different people, adults with mortgages that paid taxes, people that could drive, and drink legally. “Is Michael Wheeler a writing name or something? I swear I’ve seen your face on the back of something.”

“Oh,” Richie says, wiping his hands in his napkin. “I’m not Mike Wheeler, Mike Wheeler is my twin.”

“What?” Bev says, cocking her head. “How long have you had a twin for?” The table glances around each other, mouths slack, brows bent, and Richie shrugs, ignoring the disturbing feeling stirring in his chest.

“My whole life, I guess? Remember, we got separated by social services when we were like, I don’t know, four years old? He got adopted, I didn’t.” He rattles off with long, drawn out words, like he’s slogging his way through his personal history. Their confused looks don’t seem to ease off, only deepening the more he goes on. “How do you guys not know about my twin fucking brother. He came to Derry before I left, remember, when all that shit with-” Richie cuts himself off, remembering the oath he swore to his brother and friends, but most of all to his sister in law, promising never to speak about the Upside Down to anyone.

“With what?” Ben prods.

“With my parents, or whatever. Remember that?”

“I do.” Eddie says, nodding his head quickly. “Mikey, right? From Hawkins, Indiana?”

“Yeah.” Richie finds his throat go tight, a sudden flood of memories of flashing lights, and Eddie’s voice, much younger, much softer, much sadder, apologising for something Richie can’t remember. Surely he must have left an address, a phone number that they could’ve used to reach out, surely he didn’t just let himself forget the best people in his life, surely they didn’t just forget him either. “That’s him alright.”

Quickly, Richie takes out his phone, unlocking it in seconds to open his camera roll. He doesn’t take a whole lot of personal pictures, and someone else runs his twitter and instagram, but Mikey’s kids, Nancy’s kids, Holly’s kids, are the only pictures he has, outtakes from his and Mikey’s fortieth birthday back in March, Holly’s wedding, the party the University of Chicago threw for Nancy when she got her PhD. “Legally I’m Richard Tozier Wheeler, but I don’t even think my Wikipedia says that.”

“Uncle Richie, huh?” Mike says, smiling fondly as he scrolls through.

“Yeah, and I’m the best fucking uncle, actually.” Richie says, rattling off their names. Jane and Mikey adopted their first kid over ten years ago, through a much better system that brought Mikey to Hawkins, one that didn’t separate siblings and send kids back to their horrible parents, and their family had only grown since.

“Actually, does anyone have any kids here?” Ben asks. Ben’s change from being a teenager to a grown man makes a weird insecurity in Richie’s chest, the one he gets when he sees how healthy Mikey looks, or how happy Mikey is, a byproduct of sharing a fucking face with someone. It’s like a mirror sometimes, or a memorial, to the kind of person Richie could’ve been, if things had been different.

(“You know where I am on the whole gay rights place Richie, you know that absolutely, but I just don’t think your audience are, you get me?” Was the first thing Richie’s manager said when he came out to him, privately, and it was enough to make him wish the words had never left his mouth.)

Still, the whole table shakes their head, and Richie can’t help but bark out a laugh.

“Fucking good, we’re the last people that should be procreating. Planet’s overpopulated anyway.”

“Your brother’s wife is very pretty.” Bev says, smiling at a picture of Jane and Richie, their hands tangled together as they waltzed through Jane’s youngest’s birthday party.

“Yeah, I’m probably the only guy in the world who actually likes their sister-in-law.” He doesn’t know the specifics of Jane’s career

“God, you got that right.” Eddie huffs, agreeing with Bill nodding at him. “My wife’s sisters are fucking nuts.”

It’s really weird, all of a sudden, to picture Eddie getting in a suit, getting up the altar, waiting for someone. Picturing Eddie as someone’s husband, someone’s spouse, is enough to make Richie’s heart wilter for a second. Imagining Eddie having the love for someone the same way Mikey loves Jane, or how Nancy loves Steve and Jonathan, or how Holly loves her husband, is something Richie can’t afford to think about.

It’s timed perfectly, just as the next round of shots gets to their table. Richie takes his first, ignoring the round of cheers, and swallowing it down quickly, letting the burn in his throat conquer the pain in his chest.

“So wait Eddie, you got married?”

“Yeah? Why is that so fucking funny, dickwad?” More memories of Eddie seem to unfurl in him, how fast he spoke, how stressed he seemed, how he was never afraid to call Richie out on his shit.

“To what, like a woman?” Richie asks, chest tightening.

(“If I didn’t know you were gay,” Will Byers said, at least over five years ago, face wincing. Will Byers is in the entertainment industry too, only he’s a showrunner of a children’s cartoon riddled with controversy, for preaching the message that gay people do in fact exist. “I’d say you were pretty homophobic. Like, in your comedy I mean.”

“Yeah,” Richie said, ignoring the bad taste in his mouth. “I gotta fire that guy.”

“Good idea.” Will had nodded, and never said anything else on the matter.)

(Richie did not fire his ghostwriter.)

Eddie jabs the air with his chopstick. “Fuck you bro.”

The laugh seems to bubble out of Richie’s chest. “Fuck you!”

-

Mike hasn’t woken up to missed calls from Rich in the longest time, not since he moved out of LA. He’d wake up to the weirdest things, like Rich calling to ask if Mike remembered where the spare light bulbs were, or if Mike remembered the number to their favourite Indian takeaway, or if Mike had any spare cash he could float him for the week.

(LA didn’t agree with Mike, not the way Richie seemed to thrive there. Dating long-distance while El lived with Jonathan, Nancy and Steve in Chicago was getting harder and harder, and feeling like he was wasting his university degree went into all the factors why Mike moved. Sacramento is a sleepy, serene city, but most importantly, El loves it.)

“The clown. It’s the fucking clown. I can’t believe I forgot the  _ fucking clown _ .” Rich breathes, the room brightening around him as El switches on her bedside light. “And Stan, and Stan is…”

“Rich? You’re not making any sense.” Mike says gently. El frowns, wrapping her arms around her husband’s shoulders. He feels her cheek rest against his arm, listening distantly to Richie’s laboured breathing with him.

“Would you like me to check on him?” El. There’s the rare moments when El’s powers need to be called for, like lost toys, keys, that time their second child went missing at the mall. There’s never the need to go beyond their personal lives.

“No, no Jane it’s fine.” Rich exhales, ending with a dry, hushed laugh. There’s the faintest slur to his words, not unusual for their cross-country calls, but Mike finds himself holding in his sigh this time. “I just wanna get out of here.”

“Then do, come back here, you need a fucking break.” Mike’s seen the internet, read what Buzzfeed and Vulture read about him choking at his last show. It’s not like Rich couldn’t afford to take a few months off, lay low for a while, stay with Mike and El in Sacramento, maybe even go back to Hawkins for a bit. “You’ve been working way too hard-”

“Fucking work, Jesus-” Rich cuts himself off with half-started sentences, words Mike can’t quite get out, something shuffling in the background, as if the phone’s been dropped on the bed. After a long pause, Rich returns, sighing deeply. “You know I love you, right Mike?”

Mike sits up higher, pushing the phone closer. “You’re starting to scare me, Rich.”

“Yeah well I’m fine.” Rich snaps, sighing again. “My bag’s packed, I’ll find a way out of here tomorrow. I know Eddie said something about leaving too, I’ll check with him or whatever.”

“You sure you don’t want me to fly out there tomorrow?” Mike prods, “I’ll do it, I can meet you in Augusta. Derry, even, if you want.”

(Decades ago, Rich visited Derry with his mom and Holly, has stayed in the bed and breakfast, and felt the melancholy just seep into him, a guest in his hometown.)

Another rolling beat of silence. As per tradition, they still talk on the phone every week, twice when they can find the time, but it’s never heavy like this, or dragging like this. Mike knows his brother loves him, but he hardly says it outloud.

“You know I love you too.” Mike says, letting himself fall into the soothing circles El rubs on his back.

Then, in the dark, wrapped up in his wife’s arms, Mike still can’t sleep, plagued all the way from the otherside of the country.

“Do you remember anything about a clown?” Mike asks, feeling somewhat foolish. He can see the sun rising out behind the screen on his window, the warm yellow hue flooding their room with light. “Rich mentioned something…”

“A clown?” El says, half-groggy from the half-sleep she’s had all night. They share bad nights and good days, shouldering unkind memories together, and tonight is no exception. El furrows her brow, concentrating very hard. “I can’t remember anything.”

“Neither could Rich.”

-

He never went back to the Derry arcade, and while half of the reason is because he never felt like he could face going back there, the other half is because he found the Hawkins’ arcade. And with that was the whole of Hawkins’ society, that were too busy speculating Will Byers’ sexuality to give a damn about the new kid from New England, the blow in from Maine, the loud one, the funny one; Mike Wheeler’s cool long lost brother. Half his grade didn’t think Richie was real until he showed up on their roll boards.

And even in its crumbling, worn state, Richie remembers it all. It’s been so long since he’s been this scared.

(He doesn’t really date, he doesn’t really do relationships, and he’s always been content with that. He can’t help but wonder about the life he could’ve had, where he didn’t grow up in Hawkins, and he didn’t have Mikey. The fact that Richie can say he isn’t totally, one hundred percent lying to everyone around him is enough to keep him sane.)

He remembers the butterflies taking flight in his stomach, the rushing blood in his ears, his cheeks burning. He felt embarrassed when that kid looked at him, because he didn’t see or know the Richie Tozier everyone else did.

(For the briefest second, he could pretend he was Rich Wheeler, a much cooler, much friendlier person, that wasn’t hiding in the arcade. It took one more sighting from Pennywise for Richie to realise that he didn’t have to stay in Derry, at least not for the next few weeks, not when he had a family in Indiana who could take him away from everything.)

The token machine clanks when he puts the money in, wishing Mikey was here with him.

He always knew how to untaint the memories. He’d been doing it since they were ten.

-

It’s not until the next morning does Mike remember what Rich meant by clown. And Stan. And Eddie. And why he has to leave.

(“Well, now that your story is over, let me tell you about the murderous clown living in my town. Fun fact; he feeds on kids!” They were thirteen then, the first time they’d ever seen each other in person, and Mike remembers wishing those three weeks would never end. Looking back, it feels like that’s exactly what happened.)

Rich had a thin scar along his palm, very careful, almost deliberate looking, that Mike never knew how to approach. He just assumed it was another part of Rich, something that marked them as separate, another indicator that Rich was Richard and Mike was Michael. 

He waits until the kids are done with breakfast, trying his best to keep the anxiety off his face. He hopes they don’t catch on, the way Mike would see the flickering sadness in his mother during meal times, when the days were long and difficult, when Karen Wheeler’s sighs were heavy and hard.

“Rich is in danger.” Mike says, swallowing around the hard lump in his throat. “He’s gonna get himself killed, I know he is.”

El’s brown eyes search his, her brows bent, mouth curved downwards. She doesn’t speak, but she listens, cupping his face in her hands.

“There’s nothing I can do about it.”

(“We made a promise.” The memory comes all at once, Mike’s ear pressed against the phone, listening to Rich tell his story, about the sewers, the house, the clown’s liar, and lastly the blood oath. “To come back in twenty seven years, because that’s when It’ll come back too.”

“Why does it have to be you guys?” Mike asks, even if he knows the answer.

There was a pause, a strange thing to hear from his brother back then. Now Mike knows what it means, when Rich takes a break, so he can seriously consider the weight of his words, and what he wants to say. “I guess it’s because we wish that someone could’ve done that for us twenty seven years ago.”)

-

“You’re braver than you think,” Richie says, his breath catching in his throat.

“Thanks, Rich.” Eddie says, his eyes cast downward.

He looks at him, and remembers the first time he leant down to kiss Eddie, in his bedroom, with his cheek–the same one Eddie had wrapped in a bandage–bruised and blooming. He remembers how it felt to find sanctuary in someone else, how Eddie was the one to force him out of Derry by calling the Wheelers to come and find him.

(He wonders does Eddie remember it too.)

Fighting the clown when they were children felt easier, but hindsight is hardly kind. They get separated, which was the golden rule of their mission twenty seven years ago, and watching the closet door swing open catches in his chest. But that’s the true failing of Pennywise, because Richie hasn’t been afraid of staying in the closet since he was a teenager living in Derry. He’s been out to Mikey almost as long as he’s been out to himself, and he remembers this when he pulls the light on. The dim flood of light comes with his brother’s smile, his support and reassurance, until the severed legs comes running at him.

(He guesses that one was for Eddie.)

In the deadlights, he doesn’t see their deaths, the way Bev did. There’s no violent ends, no blood and gore, but there is misery.

It’s him, only it’s the life he narrowly avoided. Life without his brother, the one where he remained in Derry, with his parents and his pain and everything he kept bottled up inside. It’s a world where the Loser’s Club doesn’t last longer than that summer, and high school pulls them apart. He sees a man who never had any friends later on in life than the ones he had when he was thirteen, the guy who tells the same jokes over and over again, even if he didn’t write them.

It’s a lonely life, but it’s only half true. It’s scary to think how close he was to that.

In a sudden lurch, he falls out of there, back into the lair, back into the underearth. Eddie’s bright eyes and loud voice and heart hammering is hovering above him.

“I did it! I think I killed It for real!”

(The blood is warm, it seeps into his shirt and through his skin.)

He stays with him, pushing his jacket against the gaping hole in Eddie’s chest, trying to staunch some of the bleeding. He’s already lost Stan, even if he hadn’t seen him in twenty seven years, he loved him, more than words can say. And he loved Eddie, loves Eddie, even, and he can’t believe he let himself forget that.

He remembers clearly now, as the rest of the Losers follow Pennywise around the slinking lair, dodging It’s claws and taunts, just as brave and bold as they were when they were thirteen. He remembers his old house in Derry, the police sirens and lights stretching up into the muggy night sky, the Party in Hopper’s van, the Losers Club on their bikes, and Eddie, shorter than him, reaching up and kissing him right on the mouth, very sweetly, sadly, trying to pour all of his goodbyes into one moment.

“You remember it too.” Eddie says, his chest rising and falling slower than before. “The kisses. In Derry. The summer you left.”

Richie nods, suddenly at a loss for words. He can hear the battle against It reach a crescendo, the words of the Losers making the monster smaller, weaker even, bending the natural order.

“I really did love you, Richie.” Eddie’s smile is crooked, blood soaked, almost horrifying.

(Could you love me now? Richie wants to ask.)

Instead he settles on squeezing their joint hands, pressing his forehead to his, pressing the smallest of kisses on his cheek. He’ll see him when he gets back, when It is gone for good, and he’ll hold Eddie and never let him go.

He watches Mike rip Pennywise’s heart out, crush it in his fist, freeing himself from the shackles of Derry. Richie wishes, in that moment, that he could’ve given Mike some of the years he spent out of Derry. Mailing him months of the American West Coast, the hours he spent in Europe, Asia, decades without the veiled threat that Pennywise would one day return, and bring so much pain to so many people.

Richie wishes he could have spared Mike that. He also wishes Stan was there to see this too, gotten to see them win in the end.

(It’s never that simple.)

“We have to go, Richie!” He hears, distantly, someone call to him, but he feels so far away, sitting across from Eddie’s slack body, how still his eyelashes were, how cold his blood had become.

“I can’t just leave him here!” Richie feels himself be pulled up and away from Eddie, Ben and Mike wrapped around his arms. It’s easier, he gets it, to leave Eddie down here, and it’ll be quicker for them to get out of the decaying abyss. With a choked sob, Richie tolds on tighter.

(Because sometimes he thinks about what would’ve happened if Mikey decided thirty years ago that it was easier to not go looking for him, that it was easier to keep them separate, Mike and Richie and Michael and Richard, scattered across the country. He’d seen kind of life he narrowly avoided living because Mike Wheeler could never leave someone behind, even if it had been ten years since they’d ever seen each other, because he could remember how it felt to be complete.)

“I can’t leave him guys!” Richie says, and with an unusual burst of strength, pulls Eddie up with him. The still body doesn’t react, doesn’t move closer, doesn’t hold him back, but it means something to carry him out, as if he could tell Eddie that in life and death and all the places upside down, he wasn’t leaving him down there.

-

Late afternoon, Mike answers Rich’s facetime call, practically collapsing with relief when his brother’s face appears on the screen.

Despite the events of the past two days, it’s the best he’s seen him look in a good while, more color in his cheeks, looking healthier, eyes brighter.

It’s as if a weight has been lifted off of him. He looks the same way he way did after his first few weeks in Hawkins.

“Heya Mikey.” Rich says, his voice as rough as gravel. He squints, leaning closer to the camera. “You look like  _ shit _ , man, what the fuck happened to you?”

“You’re never allowed leave California!” Mike snaps, pulling himself into a kitchen chair. His brother’s laugh rings through the phone. “You look amazing, what the fuck happened to  _ you _ ?!”

“Well, we killed the fucking clown, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It’s dead?” There’s the slightest waver to Mike’s voice, something childlike, as if he’s speaking from the mind of his children.

Rich nods, a broad grin splitting his face. He really hasn’t looked this good in years, Mike notes, mirroring his smile.

He pushes his palm up against the screen, the image fuzzy. “I don’t know if you can see it but that weird scar on my hand is gone.” One of Rich’s glasses lenses is cracked, obscured by his dark hair. “Yeah, It’s dead. For good this time. Almost fucking took Eddie with it.”

“Eddie?” Mike tilts his head, the name familiar. “Eddie…. Kaspbrak?”

His brother’s smile gets wider, unapologetically cheesy. “Yep, that’s him. He’s the one that called mom and dad, remember, when you guys came up here that summer?”

The Gate in Derry had been left open for centuries, a benign tear in the universe that El had stitched back together. Mike remembers driving across the country, the summer before they all started high school. He’d only realised hours ago that his memories were different to what had actually happened. The fond ones, like sleeping in the van or on shitty motel floors, stopping in dodgy gas stations and diners, the sweltering summer heat, stayed intact, kept away for a rainy day. The ones that reminded him it had been over two weeks since he last called Dustin, or Lucas, the ones he brought with him to their monthly Dungeons and Dragons sessions, the ones he shared with his children, that they in turn shared with theirs’.

The Gate, meeting his father, fearing for his brother’s life, had all been washed away with the passage of time.

He never questioned it. No one asks where the haunted memories go.

(“We went camping the year before we started high school, right?” He’d asked Steve, before he was totally sure his brother was safe.

“Uh, yeah we did, you fuckers still owe me gas money.”)

“How’s he doing?” Mike asks, smiling back.

“He’s...” Rich starts, as if he’s mulling on his words, the vaguest awestruck expression on his face. “Exactly how he was when we were kids.”

Mike doesn’t know what to say to that. He can’t imagine how he’d feel if he ever forgot the Party, if he grew up into adulthood without them. Dustin, Will and Lucas are his children’s godparents, friends he’s made for a lifetime, spread out across the West Coast. What do you say to someone who forgot his?

Rich explains how he’s flying back to Sacramento, how his manager, in two days of absence has dropped him, but he doesn’t really mind. It’s freeing, weirdly, to hear him say that he’s the most lost he’s ever felt in his life. It means he can rebuild himself better, Mike thinks, watching as he goes through some of the new material he couldn’t keep in his head anymore, that he had to scribble down somewhere.

“You don’t mind if I drop by for a while?” Rich asks, half an hour later. “I’m kinda avoiding going back home.” Rich rubs that back of his neck, covering his laugh with a cough. “I fired my manager, and then my agent, and it’s just…” He sticks out his tongue, blowing a wet raspberry.

“The trials and tribulations of having a public meltdown.” Mike shakes his head.

“Hey, fuck you dude, I almost died, and then what would you have done.”

“Made sure your will was watertight so all your money goes to me, duh.”

(Whatever happened during that fight with the clown, changed his brother for the better of it.)

-

Eddie fidgets the entire away to Chicago. He whines about the traffic to JFK and moans about the lines at security and bitches about the flight delay. Richie thinks it must’ve been an absolute miracle for him to fly from New York to Maine.

(It’s been almost four months since going back to Derry and he’s yet to go back to LA. He divides his time between Sacramento with Mikey and Jane, Chicago with Nancy and Jonathan, Steve and Robin, Holly in Indianapolis with her husband, getting to see more of his siblings and his hoard of nieces and nephews. He takes his mom with him, because after dad died and they all moved out, Hawkins hadn’t really felt like her home anymore.

There’s also New York, because he told Eddie he’d help him see the end of his marriage. He promised him, in the darkest parts of their lives, that he was braver than he believed, and brave enough to leave his wife.

Of course no one expected Myra to turn around and use  _ adultery _ in her documents, but Richie can hardly say she’s wrong.)

“Why are you so jumpy?” Richie asks, getting out of the cab. They decided on Chicago because Nancy said so, claiming it’d be more central, her house was bigger, and since she was the oldest she got priority. The snow is already falling, keeping the city in a wash of white and hale.

“I don’t know, asshole, you randomly told me I was invited to your mom’s sixty sixth-”

“Just say her birthday, Christ, she’ll hate you-”

Eddie pauses, his lip quivering slightly. “She’s gonna hate me?”

Richie groans, looking at the long line of red brick townhouses stretching out before them, behind them, and curling around the corner. “Just ignore I said that.”

“Too later now, fucker, why is your mother gonna hate me?”

“She doesn’t like being reminded of her age, I guess? Now fuck off and help me find Nancy’s house.”

They stalk through the winds in silence, Eddie taking the left side of the street while Richie takes the right. Richie doesn’t remember how it happened, but by the time they find his sister’s house–big, red brick, huge back garden, fitting for a professor of Journalism–Eddie’s hand is locked in his.

They don’t ring the doorbell for a moment, waiting until Eddie’s done fiddling with his tie. The tie had been a whole dispute earlier, with Eddie insisting he wanted to make a good impression and Richie countering saying he’d be the only person wearing a tie. He knows, ultimately, that all of Eddie’s annoying mannerisms is just a product of the stress of his divorce, a new relationship, and the daunting task of meeting his family, but Richie just wants him to calm the fuck down for a few minutes.

“Hey.” He says, ringing the doorbell before Eddie can protest. “My brother likes you, my sisters like you, the Hawkins people like you, and my mom will definitely love you.”

“What about your nieces and nephews?” Eddie asks, his eyes cast downwards.

Richie lifts his hand to Eddie’s cheek, lightly brushing over the small scar. Swiftly, he kisses Eddie, savoring the warmth in the middle of the cold porch. He pulls away first, an old habit from worrying about people looking, or stressing that Eddie would push him away. But they’re getting longer, more lingering, sweet enough to smile through.

“They can smell fear.” Richie pats his cheek, snickering at Eddie’s terrified expression.

The door swings open with a crescendo of shrieks, all of the children throwing themselves at him. Easily, Richie manages to swing Nancy’s youngest over his shoulder and Holly’s eldest gets glued to his leg, one of Mikey’s middle children jumping on his back.

“ _ Arrghh! _ ” He yells, dropping his voice down a few octaves. Last Christmas, he made the devastating mistake of showing his nieces and nephews  _ Pacific Rim _ , and now the only thing they had time for was pretending to be Jaegers. “I’m getting old guys!” He yells, struggling through the front door. It’s a big enough party, he notices once he gets into the front room, already recognising the Hawkins group. Max and Lucas’ child is pulling out of his other leg. “Some of these aren’t even related to me!”

He almost forgets that Eddie’s with him too, until he turns around to see his mom pouncing on his guest, cupping his face in her palms. Richie’s never really dated before, never felt strong enough about someone, years of his mom nagging when he was gonna settle down, or bring someone home for her to meet for the first time.

In a way, he knows that will never happen, because twenty six years ago, Eddie met his mother, and she’s loved him ever since.

“You brought Eds?” Jane asks him, sliding an arm around his waist in a half-hug. The kids scatter off of him, suddenly bored of the adult world, running back into the playroom and into the child’s realm.

“I forgot to RSVP my guest. He’s allergic to everything.” He shrugs, ignoring Nancy’s piercing glare from across the room. “Sorry Nance!”

Jane laughs, casting her eyes to Steve in the kitchen, directing the small catering staff around the dining room like an army general. “I like him.”

Mikey comes up behind them, nudging Richie gently. He’s got his lips pursed, as if he has something he wants to say but can’t quite bring himself to ask it. Richie knows his brother, and knows exactly what he means.

“He fits in nicely.” Jane says for the both of them. “How is he like with children?”

“Terrified, naturally.”

Leaving a kiss on Richie’s cheek, she scoops Holly’s youngest up into her arms, maneuvering her way through the party until she finds Eddie and drops the two year old into his arms, smiling blithely and charmingly the entire time.

It’s almost like a baptism. Welcome to the Wheeler Family, asshole.

Richie can feel his brother’s gaze on him while the room moves around them, orbiting them like they’re two twin suns. He’ll make the usual rounds later, check in with Lucas and Max, stop and talk with Will and his husband, ask Dustin how Oregon is treating him. Jim and Joyce Hopper have permanent positions in the playroom, drinking from juice boxes with the grandchildren. It’s a family reunion in all its forms, only with less killer clowns and more chardonnay.

“You can stop freaking out about me, you know that right.” Richie sighs, watching Eddie hold the baby up by the armpits, looking extremely uncomfortable, lending one ear to Karen Wheeler talking at him about the last twenty five years. “He makes me happy. I make him happy.”

(Roughly speaking, according to something their social worker said just before Mikey got adopted, Mikey was born first and Richie was eighteen minutes later. Richie went from being an only child to being someone’s younger sibling, and there was something fierce in Mikey’s love for him.)

Mikey laughs, like a strange giggle rising out of him. They turn forty one soon, with thirty one years of correspondence tied up between them. Mikey wraps his arm around his shoulders, shaking him gently. “Nice try, bitch, but I think freaking out about you has cost me twenty years off my lifespan.”

(Because the fact still remains; Mike and Rich and Mikey and Richie and Michael and Richard are adults, who had the privilege to grow up with one another, and the capacity to hold each other in their hearts.)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading !!!!


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